You already have a way in. Hola (OH-lah) means hello, and buenos días (BWEH-nos DEE-as) means good morning — both land well at any first meeting. Today you add the next few lines: your name, how old you are, where you come from, and where you live. Four small facts. By the end of this page-or-two you'll be able to say all four out loud.
Here is the whole conversation you're building towards. Read it through once — you'll meet every part of it properly in a moment, so don't worry about holding it all yet.
¿Cómo te llamas? — What's your name?
Me llamo Florence. — My name is Florence.
¿Cuántos años tienes? — How old are you?
Tengo trece años. — I'm thirteen.
¿De dónde eres? — Where are you from?
Soy de Inglaterra. — I'm from England.
¿Dónde vives? — Where do you live?
Vivo en… — I live in…
Spanish opens a question with ¿ and an exclamation with ¡, then closes with the normal ? or !. It's a small kindness to the reader — you know a question is coming before you reach the end of the line. Nobody else's language does this.
Spanish is the first language of around 485 million people, which makes it the second most-spoken native language on Earth — ahead of English, behind only Mandarin Chinese. It is official in twenty-one countries, most of them in the Americas.
You only need a small handful of numbers to give an age or a date, and they come in three gentle tiers. First the building blocks, 0 to 15 — these you learn one by one, but there are only sixteen of them and they turn up everywhere.
Then the pattern kicks in and it gets kinder. 16 to 19 are "ten-and-something", run into one word: dieciséis is diez + y + seis — ten and six. So dieciséis (16), diecisiete (17), dieciocho (18), diecinueve (19). Notice dieciséis carries an accent — é — which marks the stressed beat when you say it aloud.
20 to 29 do exactly the same trick with twenty: veinte (20), then veintiuno (21), veintidós (22), veintitrés (23), on up to veintinueve (29). After that comes treinta (30), and the very last one you need for a day-of-the-month splits into three little words — treinta y uno (31), literally "thirty and one".
The word for zero, cero, and the English word zero both trace back to the Arabic ṣifr — "empty". Arabic mathematicians carried the idea of zero into Europe through Spain over a thousand years ago, which is one reason so many Spanish words still begin with al-: almohada (pillow), azúcar (sugar).
To ask someone's name you say ¿Cómo te llamas? (KOH-moh teh YAH-mas) — word for word it's "how do you call yourself?". To answer, you say Me llamo… (meh YAH-moh) — "I call myself…" — and add your name. So: Me llamo Florence.
Now the surprise, and it's a good one. To say your age, Spanish does not use "to be" the way English does. We say "I am thirteen". Spanish says you have thirteen years — it uses the verb tener, "to have". ¿Cuántos años tienes? (KWAN-tos AHN-yos TYEH-ness) is "how many years do you have?", and you answer Tengo trece años. — "I have thirteen years."
Spanish treats your years as something you carry with you, like a possession that grows by one each birthday. So you never say soy trece — that would mean "I am a thirteen", like being a number. It's always tengo … años. The little word años (AHN-yos) means "years", and the squiggle over the n — the ñ — gives it that soft "ny" sound, as in the middle of "onion".
Tap each card — the front is Spanish, the back gives the meaning and how to say it:
Spanish uses tener ("to have") for a whole family of feelings, not only age. You have hunger (tengo hambre), you have cold (tengo frío), you have fear (tengo miedo). Where English is something, Spanish often has it instead.
To say where you come from, you use ser (sehr), "to be" — the deep, lasting kind of "be", the one for things that don't change, like where you were born. ¿De dónde eres? (deh DON-deh EH-ress) is "where are you from?", and you answer Soy de… (soy deh) — "I am from…" — and name the place: Soy de Inglaterra. (I'm from England.)
To say where you live now, you use vivir (vee-VEER), "to live". ¿Dónde vives? (DON-deh VEE-vess) is "where do you live?", and you answer Vivo en… (VEE-voh ehn) — "I live in…" — and name your town: Vivo en Manchester.
| Spanish | Say it | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ¿De dónde eres? | deh DON-deh EH-ress | Where are you from? |
| Soy de… | soy deh | I'm from… |
| ¿Dónde vives? | DON-deh VEE-vess | Where do you live? |
| Vivo en… | VEE-voh ehn | I live in… |
| Inglaterra | een-glah-TEH-rrah | England |
Spanish has two verbs for "to be": ser for things that stay (who you are, where you're from) and estar for things that shift (how you feel, where you are right now). One feeling, two verbs — it's one of the first big ideas that makes Spanish Spanish.
Fresh one. To say where you're from, you use the verb ser. Type the one word that means I am: ______ de Inglaterra.
Fresh one. Type the Spanish word for 30 — the number that comes right before "thirty-one".
Put it all together. Write four short lines about yourself — your name, your age, where you're from, and where you live. Use the four openings you met today: Me llamo… · Tengo … años · Soy de… · Vivo en… Four lines is plenty. Copy the accents and the ñ as best you can — getting close is the whole aim today.
strong You reached for all four openings and kept them in order — name, age, where you're from, where you live. That's a whole introduction, start to finish, and it would carry you through a real first meeting. Using tengo for your age rather than soy shows the idea has landed.
try this Read your age line back and check it ends in años with the ñ — Tengo trece años. Leaving it as plain anos changes the word completely, so it's a squiggle worth guarding. Say the line aloud once as you check it; your ear will catch what your eye skips.
to add When this feels steady, add a y ("and") to join two ideas: Vivo en Manchester y soy de Inglaterra. One small joining word, and four separate lines start to sound like a person talking.
Sit down with Dad for any of these. You won't follow every word — you're not meant to. Let the sound of Spanish become familiar, and listen for the handful of words you now know. Heavier titles flagged for a chat first.
Choose the pieces — your name, your age, where you live — and hear the whole introduction spoken in Spanish. Change one piece and listen to how the sentence changes.
Everything here is spoken by your browser's built-in voice, so it works offline. If a Spanish voice is on your device it will sound Spanish; if not, you'll still hear the words, read in whatever voice is available.
Listen for how Ashleigh gives her name, age and where she's from — and notice the accents of the Spanish children.
Your name, your age, where you're from, where you live — four lines, three small verbs, and a handful of numbers. You learned the lovely Spanish habit of having your age rather than being it, and you met the two ways Spanish says "to be". Say your four lines out loud once more before you close the page. Florence, this is Spanish — and you're already in it.